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Tag Archive | Beijing

When Jenna Talackova ran for the Miss Universe pageant, public outcry poured out due to Jenna being a MtF transsexual woman.

Usain Bolt winning the 100m by daylight at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Many articles covering the news had comment sections available, and there were more than enough vicious, ignorant, and hate filled comments.

The standard ignorant comments were all there. She’s not really a girl, she’s still a dude. Just because she looks like a woman doesn’t mean she is one. I can get plastic surgery to look like a dolphin but it doesn’t make me a dolphin. Absolutely ridiculous comments.

But one in particular stood out.

“So does that mean if Mike Tyson or Usain Bolt got a sex change, that they could then win in their sport easily by beating up on women? Can you imagine Usain Bolt running 100M in 9.59 against women? That record would never be broken.”

I laughed at his comment. Particularly since there were so many layers to his comment that clearly indicated he obviously did not understand what transgender people are about.

Transgender people do not transition to go undercover to rob banks, or to win at sports easier. They do so because their core gender identity does not match what was assigned to them at birth.

Simply looking at a newborn and seeing a penis, and then proceeding to label the infant as a boy is the same as looking at an African American newborn and immediately saying he or she will play basketball for a living. It sounds like a stretch to compare the two, but it’s truly an outdated notion to assume a newborn is going to be straight or the gender in which they were assigned. Just as assuming a Chinese American newborn is automatically going to be a doctor or Nobel Prize physicist or an African American newborn is automatically going to be a professional athlete is equally ludicrous.

It is time we update ourselves to present day knowledge and hold off on labeling and confining our children, and letting their true natures and identities shine through. Then, and only then, shall we encourage their innate selves and natural tendencies to blossom and strengthen.

I can assure you Mike Tyson and Usain Bolt do not want to transition their genders, and even if they were suppressing their gender identities and came out as transgender, I can assure you that they wouldn’t do so to “win in their sport.” Mike Tyson putting on a dress and being allowed to box other women would truly be a scenario where a man is allowed to put on a dress to beat up on another woman.

There would be nothing genuinely feminine about Mike except his clothing.

When transgender people transition their gender, even if they aren’t “passable” by current societal standards, they are still women. They may face struggles in regendering their behavior, mannerisms, and other expressions in their daily lives, but it doesn’t diminish or negate who they are inside and the gender in which they identify.

And even if Usain Bolt truly was a woman and identified as such, and finally chose to come out publicly and transition, Usain should be allowed to compete with other women if transition truly was something Usain wanted to do.

Why? Because even though he would have tremendous height when lined up against all the other women (not to mention having a penis too), he would still be a woman in terms of identity. And being physically different doesn’t preclude or eliminate his status from being female. It would just mean he had natural advantages in the physical arena (height, muscle mass, etc) which isn’t something that is regulated in sports…because last I checked, they didn’t divide the NBA by height and make Steve Nash a center against shorter NBA players, and Shaquille O’Neal a point guard against all the other 7 footers.

The key here is not to look at people who were “gendered” by society as one way and then vehemently and rigidly stick to that gendering when regendering someone does and can happen all the time to transgender people.

But I highly doubt either Mike Tyson or Usain Bolt would want to do that anyway.

Finally, just to note what would happen if Usain Bolt or any other athlete did transition and start hormones: their muscle mass would decrease drastically.

And even though Usain Bolt might still run a fast time, I can assure you he wouldn’t be able to run a 9.58 if he were on hormones and legitimately identified as transgender. He would let out his feminine self, the self he suppressed his whole life, and embrace who he was and the hormones would help him align with his true self.